"You are taking a grave risk, mother," he said earnestly. "Far better let me pass out of your life—altogether."
"No, no! I would rather never marry than that. Promise me that you will come and see me, and I will see you whenever opportunity offers. Promise me, or——"
"All right, mother," replied the man, with his gentle, affectionate smile. "You go ahead. You can always rely on me for anything. And I give you my word of honor your husband shall never know that I am your son."
That night Frank Burton leaned back in the upholstered seat of the ordinary car on the west-bound train. He made no attempt to read the Winnipeg Free Press which lay open on his lap. He was busy forming conclusions. One of them was that life was by no means the simple affair it had seemed to him two days ago.
But he came to a more important conclusion than that. He tried to view things from his mother's standpoint, from the point of view of her feelings, and, while he deplored the gravity of the risk she, as a woman, was taking, he acknowledged that he would have done the same himself.
He thought of Phyllis Raysun—his Phyllis—and went hot and cold as he tried to picture what his life would be if he were never to see her again. He knew, in the recklessness of his youthful courage, he would take any risk rather than lose her.
Yes, love was a great and wonderful thing. He had just made the discovery. His interview with his mother had opened his eyes to the state of his own feelings. Love? Why it was more than worth any risk. To him, in the first flush of his eighteen years, it was the very essence of life. It was all that really mattered. And he almost laughed when he thought of the shock he had experienced when he had been deliberately told he was a—bastard.